Iffy:

Borderlands is a "high-concept art style" shooter meets role playing game set in a post-apocalyptic world with a vault in it. If it sounds like you played this game last year when it was called Fallout 3, you'd be partially correct; the staff at developer Gearbox Software isn't hiding the fact that they were big fans of Bethesda's critically acclaimed 2008 title. But where Borderlands parts ways is in its protagonist's hopes to break into a coveted vault, not escape from one.

Also, it looks like a cartoon.

Welcome to Borderlands, can I take your order?

What's New for E3?

The story revolves around a group of loot raiders who traverse a Mad Maxian landscape in search of coveted alien technology, fragments of which had previously fallen to earth where they were utilized to great power by the humans. At the heart of it all is the Atlus Corporation, a giant conglomerate that reverse-engineered the alien tech to build their empire, possibly leading to the creation of the wasteland. It's in the mythical vaults where the motherlode of abandoned alien science allegedly remains.

The art direction compliments the story line's dystopian themes while still maintaining a bold look, with crisp yet gritty textures wrapped in heavy black lines. It's like unearthing the bomb shelter where Walt Disney's head is frozen and finding out he's still animating things. Something like that.

Across the game's vast world enemy variety ranges from burrowing creatures to "mutant midget psychos" (that's their actual names) to greedy bandits who are just as interested in looting the land as they are in decapitating you. Luckily, you can take great pleasure in disintegrating them or melting off their skin using any of the game's hundreds of thousands of promised guns. One weapon we witnessed was a sniper rifle with incendiary shotgun rounds. Yeah, it's like that. Treasure chests and loot drops are randomized, so discovering a good amount of them won't be too difficult, although finding them all will likely land you in a psych ward. Or at least a municipal ordinance from your real-life neighbors for going months without bathing.

Giving a whole new definition to "land whales."

The RPG elements kick in with a robust level-up system that benefits single-player as well as multiplayer, allowing players to jump seamlessly between their game and their friends' regardless of how far along they are. One mission we saw involved a team of players cooperatively taking over a factory yard filled with bandits in order to detonate a pipeline, with frantic gunfire flying everywhere. In a nod to one of Borderlands' other inspirations, World of Warcraft, raid scenarios like this can be replayed infinitely as a nice diversion from the main story's progression.

Brian A. says: As someone who grew up with the time to play traditional role-playing games but grew in to someone who didn't, I'm all for the influx of RPG elements into the more twitch-based shooting games I can make room for nowadays. Borderlands seemed to balance both without burying me in boring inventory management screens and hours of clunky character development, at least so far.